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Texas bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins (1912-1982) played, sang and lived by his own rules. When a sideman once asked him what key they were playing in, he proclaimed, “the key of Lightnin’ Hopkins!” A protégé of Blind Lemon Jefferson at age 8, he hit the road at a young age, playing juke joints and picnics throughout the South. A stint on a chain gang left some scars, but never slowed him down as he blazed a trail through the blues with his raw, inimitable guitar playing and voice. Like many Black bluesmen, he was “rediscovered” by British rockers and white college kids in the 1960s. ...

  Once George Harrison picked up the sitar to add exotic sounds to John Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood”, the pop world turned toward the East, as did luminaries like John Coltrane and composer Philip Glass. Suddenly, the

Brooklyn born and raised, Richie Havens (1941-2013) began hanging out in Greenwich Village in 1959, as a street portrait artist and sometime busker. By 1961, he was a familiar face in the folk clubs, playing alongside Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil, Dylan and Dino Valenti. Despite this folkie pedigree, a tour with Nina Simone taught him the power of song interpretation, a lesson he never forgot. His unforgettable, partly impromptu opening set at Woodstock in 1969 brought him fame and there was no looking back after that. PKM’s John Kruth interviewed Havens over a long period of time and pulls toge...

Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997) was a singer-songwriter whose work was popularized by Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard and Lyle Lovett, among many others. Some of his tunes (“Pancho and Lefty,” “For the Sake of the Song,” “To Live is to Fly”) are masterpieces of songwriting craft. Outside of a period of relative stability in Nashville, however, his life was troubled, marred by alcohol and heroin addiction, divorces, bad management, and his own choice to live off the grid. We offer this reflection for Townes Van Zandt’s birthday (March 7), with a little help from his biog...

The 52nd Annual ASCAP FOUNDATION DEEMS TAYLOR/VIRGIL THOMSON AWARDS have been announced for Outstanding Print, Broadcast, Liner Notes & New Media Coverage of Music. Awards span an eclectic range of musical subjects including the first Blues recording by a Black female artist; the issue of racial bias in orchestras, the career of a towering Jazz critic, the endurance of MOROCCO’s Master Musicians of JAJOUKA; a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of a classic 1960s film soundtrack; ...